


Lot's Wife

by BrighteyedJill



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-02
Updated: 2010-04-02
Packaged: 2017-10-08 15:18:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/76997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrighteyedJill/pseuds/BrighteyedJill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter looked back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lot's Wife

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [](http://community.livejournal.com/heroes_contest/profile)[**heroes_contest**](http://community.livejournal.com/heroes_contest/) prompt "Biblical." Thanks to [](http://jaune-chat.livejournal.com/profile)[**jaune_chat**](http://jaune-chat.livejournal.com/) for beta-ing.

  
Peter looked back. That was the problem. If he'd listened and believed, if he'd just had a little more faith, he wouldn't have had to do what he did.  
\--

  
"You liked Ireland, right?" Nathan asked. He'd shown up on Peter's doorstep unexpectedly, after Peter had long given up hope of them reconciling, and he looked formal and out of place in Peter's messy apartment. "I hear the weather's nice. Very…rainy."

  
"I didn't have such a great time there, actually." Peter was sitting on the edge of the bed and watching with interest as Nathan pulled Peter's clothes out of the closet and tossed them into the suitcase on the floor. "People died."

  
Nathan paused fractionally to throw an unreadable glance at his brother. "Not your fault, Pete."

  
"Whose fault was it, then?"

  
Nathan ignored the question in favor of fishing out a pair of shoes from the closet and tossing them on top of the pile of clothes. "Fine," he said. "Go to France. You took French, didn't you?"

  
"No, Spanish."

  
"Go to Mexico, then. No, not Mexico. Argentina." Nathan flipped shut the suitcase on the floor and grabbed an empty duffel bag into which he began sweeping the random debris on top of Peter's dresser. "Go to Australia and find yourself. I don't care."

  
"You want me out of the way, is that it?" Peter asked.

  
Nathan's hand hovered above the picture frame on the dresser. Instead of answering, he picked it up. It was the same photo, with its broken glass, that had been sitting next to the bed when Peter returned from his months of imprisonment in Hartsdale and subsequent misadventures. Peter has never asked Nathan about it, but he liked to think that the photo—of the two of them at Nathan's wedding—had kept his brother company during those long, lonely weeks in this apartment spent in mourning and drinking himself stupid. Nathan moved as if to put it in the bag, then stopped and set it back on the dresser. "I need you safe," Nathan said softly.

  
"Why can't you tell me what this thing is you're so worried about?" Peter was a little affronted that after all they'd been through, his brother was keeping something from him. "We can handle it together."

  
"No." Nathan zippered the duffel shut and tossed it on top of the suitcase. "I can't do what I need to do if you're here."

  
Peter knew a warning sign when he heard one. He stood up. "What's that supposed to mean? You're afraid I'll be in the way?"

  
"Not that. Peter…" Nathan reached out to grab Peter's shoulders, but stopped himself, clenching his hands into fists. "I need you to have a little faith."

  
Peter came closer, pressing into Nathan's space, inside the reach of his fists, past his defenses, close enough to feel his heart beating in his chest. "Nathan, tell me what's happening."

  
"Do you trust me?"

  
To Peter's surprise, it was an actual question, not a rhetorical one. Peter almost said no, but something in Nathan's eyes stopped him. It was a look Peter didn't often see on his brother: need. Peter didn't know if his power of empathy was guiding him, or if he knew Nathan too well, but he understood that Nathan needed him to say yes. Peter wasn't sure what would happen if he told Nathan his faith was gone, that he was becoming the bitter, hardened man he'd seen in the future: the Peter with a scarred face and a scarred soul. He wasn't sure himself if the faith he had left was even the size of a mustard seed. What mattered was that Nathan was here asking him—needing him—to believe.

  
"Yes," Peter said. "I trust you."

  
Nathan didn't exactly move—he stayed a breath away from Peter, the pulse of his heart in his chest pressing against Peter's own—but he relaxed a fraction.

  
"Whatever you want me to do, Nathan," Peter said, and was rewarded with Nathan softened a touch more.

  
"I'm trying to do what's best. For everyone." He kissed Peter on the forehead. "I can save the world, Pete. Just let me do this. I need you to go and not look back."  
\--

  
Peter looked back, even though Nathan told him not to. Years afterwards, he would often wonder what would have turned out differently—with his life and with the world—if he'd been just a little more patient. And he could never quite bring himself to be proud of what he'd done.  
\--

  
Peter did to go Australia first, and he spent forty days out in the desert re-learning his powers: healing from sunburn every night after sunset, taking flight through dry wadis, and shooting bolts of electricity at dingoes who wandered too close to his camp. It was liberating, being away from the thoughts and emotions of his fellow man. There were no complicated moral quandaries or doomsday dilemmas. There was only Nathan's word: stay away.

  
Every day he was tempted to jump back to civilization, back to New York, just to see what was happening, to see what Nathan was up to. But he had faith. He told himself he had to believe, that he was being tested, and all would be well if he could just obey.

  
On the fortieth day, Peter met Hiro Nakamura in the desert. He seemed darker than Peter remembered. He carried a sword, and the look he gave Peter when their eyes met was downright grim.

  
"You have to come with me," Hiro said.

  
"Why? What is it?" Peter asked, although he thought that somewhere in his heart of hearts, he knew.

  
"It's your brother."  
\--

  
Peter looked back, and immediately wished he hadn't. He didn't want to lose that pure, safe certainty of Nathan's righteousness. He'd worshiped his brother from the time he was old enough to speak words of praise. Every time his devotion wavered, he told himself that he simply didn't understand, and all would be revealed in the fullness of time. It turned out that Peter was never meant to know.  
\--

  
New York City was quiet, as if it were holding its breath. They arrived at night, and Hiro led Peter down dark back alleys. On Twelfth Street, he pulled Peter back from a corner where a line of National Guardsmen was tromping past.

  
"What's happening?" Peter asked.

  
"Nathan told them about us," Hiro explained. "What we can do. They want to round us all up before there is a public outcry."

  
Peter looked up and down the street, which looked more like the frightening world of his scarred doppelganger than the city he'd left only weeks before. "I wasn't gone that long," he said.

  
"He moves fast."

  
Peter glared at Hiro. "Nathan couldn't have done this. He's one of us."

  
"Try to tell that to him," Hiro said bitterly. "He thinks he's better than us. He only seeks to hold on to his power. You must help me."

  
"I have to talk to Nathan. I can make him understand—."

  
"Do you really think that will work?"

  
"No." The truth, plain and painful. Nathan had wanted Peter out of the way; he had used him. Peter grasped for that last little bit of faith inside himself, and felt it dissipate like breath upon a mirror. He couldn't believe in Nathan any more, no matter how much he wanted to. "No."

  
"Then help me," Hiro said. "We can save some of them."

  
"That's not enough to stop him," Peter said. And then he knew.  
\--

  
Peter looked back, and felt a strange, righteous sense of satisfaction. It was funny, he thought, how letting go of his belief in someone else strengthened his belief in himself. He felt powerful. Frightened and alone and betrayed, but powerful.  
\--

  
Nathan's apartment in Alexandria was large and well-ordered. Peter noticed the picture of him and Nathan, still in the frame with broken glass, on the dresser next to a picture of Heidi and the boys at Coney Island. Had Nathan kept it as a reminder? A warning? Peter put it face-down on the dresser and turned away. He didn't let the picture trouble him.

  
It was too early for Nathan to be home, so Peter settled in to wait. When Nathan returned, Peter would do what he had to do to stop Nathan from destroying the world.  
\--

  
Peter looked back, and didn't turn to salt. Peter always thought he'd die if he lost his faith in Nathan. He'd told as much to his friends, to his mother, to Nathan himself. But Peter was very much alive. In fact, he was more alive now than he had been in the desert, desperately clinging to a belief he'd outgrown. Peter had looked back, and seen the destruction of the world, and been reborn.


End file.
